Ramón Arroyo, the “Ironman” who competes with multiple sclerosis: “I turned my back on the disease for 3 years and playing sports changed my life”

“I was an ordinary guy, who did what any ordinary person is supposed to do during their daily life: finish school, go to college, get a job to grow, improve and succeed. It met the average scheme of a person who did what he had to do until August 15, 2004 ″, recalls Ramón Arroyo in dialogue with Infobae as he prepares to play the Ironman medium in San Juan (Argentina) together with the Re Max team.

“I worked for many years as a commercial manager for different areas of the world. In a Spanish multinational company with links to the Middle East and the Far East, in recent years he has been responsible for business development of the company and seeking strategic agreements in the industry. But that day life decided to surprise us and something extraordinary happened to us. Something out of the ordinary”, continues the former businessman and now a semi-professional athlete.

“I was with my girlfriend on vacation in Almeria (in the southeast of Spain) in a beautiful place with wonderful beaches with crystal clear water. We enjoyed everything: diving, going to the beach, romantic dinners... But that day I was quite tired and decided to stay in the apartment. I smoked and at one point the cigarette fell out of my hand not once, but a couple of times. At the same time, when I grabbed the soda can, my hand began to tremble. 48 hours later I ended up with hemiplegia all over the right side of my body. I had no capacity to control that sector. I could barely walk.”

“At the age of 32 I was having the first manifestations of multiple sclerosis (MS),” says Ramón about the autoimmune and neurodegenerative disease of unknown causes that directly attacks myelin, a substance that envelops nerve fibers causing poor communication and an interruption in electrical signals between neurons.

Although, thanks to the advancement of science and technology, it is now easier to diagnose the disease, Arroyo reveals that 18 years ago “I had no idea what was happening to me. A few days ago I had suffered from some neck pains. I thought it might be a herniated disc, but of course, the hernias weren't so brutal as to cause paralysis in the face. I never thought that MS could be treated, I didn't even know that this disease existed.”

“I was really scared. At first we were diagnosed with a cardiovascular accident, a stroke. But after some tests they saw that there was nothing abnormal. It was surprising even for the doctors themselves,” explains the Spaniard about those first months in which he walked from one medical center to another with his girlfriend without finding certainty about what was really happening to him.

“Four months later I had a relapse and I was admitted to the hospital again and there a doctor was very clear from the start that it was multiple sclerosis, she tested me and confirmed it.”

Distrustful of the result, as a result of the ill-advised previous diagnoses, Ramón's first stance on what was happening was one of skepticism: “I guess my brain was trying to protect itself from what they were telling me. I doubted whether the report was correct, but at the same time I saw an infographic about the disease with 12 items and as I read it I realized that I was 12 out of 12”.

From that moment on, their lives changed. Not only his own, but also that of his girlfriend Inma, who says it became a fundamental pillar. During the interview Ramón talks about how she lives with the disease in the plural since, although he didn't choose to have it, she did: “We were dating, she could have said: 'Look Ramón, I got here. I want to be with a healthy man, who doesn't cause me any problems. ' But she never doubted being by my side.”

FROM DEPRESSION TO OVERCOMING

“I turned my back on the disease for three years. I couldn't accept it, I didn't accept to live with the uncertainty of what could happen to me. Fearing that he would not know when he was going to have an outbreak or what type of relapse he would have. Living with that and accepting to live under that Sword of Damocles (definition used to express fear of imminent threat or danger) is very difficult.”

The main characteristic of MS in 85% of cases is the appearance of multiple outbreaks and remissions. The first can last between 24 and 72 hours, generating neurological consequences in each of them depending on the intensity with which it occurs and the affected sector, while the second corresponds to a period of time in which the disease does not manifest itself explicitly, allowing a total, partial or persistent. In any case, the patient's health deteriorates as does his cognitive system with each new outbreak.

“But with the birth of our first child I realized that I was not guilty of having MS; I was responsible for how to live with the disease that had touched me and that child was not to blame for anything. He needed a full-time dad wanting to play, tickle him and give him all the love a child needs. That was the most important turning point in making the decision to start taking care of myself and trying to live with the disease,” he details excitedly.

At the same time, the 51-year-old from Bilbao defines multiple sclerosis as The Disease of Uncertainty: “I say that the worst thing is not the neurological consequences that each outbreak can cause you. One can recover with more or less rehabilitation work because the brain and body are so wise that they seek to return to recover that lost capacity: for example, if in an outbreak you end up unable to walk, you look for a wheelchair and learn to move. If you lose the ability to move your right hand, you end up writing or feeding with your left hand. There is a certainty there.”

“But the worst thing is to live knowing that I am talking to you today and that I am going to do an Ironman medium, but that at the same time I have no certainty that I will not have an outbreak and that on Sunday instead of being in San Juan I am in a hospital in the middle of treatment,” he explains.

“Living with this is very complicated, because it's not about missing a competition or a barbecue with friends or any other activity, but with each outbreak you could lose the ability to work or do everyday things in life. Living with this uncertainty conditions you in many decisions: changing jobs, having more children, buying a house or simply paying for a hotel reservation to go on vacation in August. Anyway, we learned that we have to make those decisions because we have to keep on living.”

HIS LINK TO SPORTS AND HOW IT HELPED HIM GET OUT OF DEPRESSION

Ramón Arroyo was one of those guys who at the beginning of the year set out to start the gym, paid for the annual pass, but after two or three months he ended up abandoning it for some reason. However, when diagnosed with MS, and after succumbing to depression, he used sport as a therapeutic tool to live with the disease. “What I didn't know was that I was going to get this far,” says the Spaniard, who today lost count of the marathons and half Ironman in which he participated.

His passion for athletics arose as a result of his instinct to overcome: “I started jogging only 100 meters because it was the distance that a doctor told me I would not be able to reach because of the disease and injuries I had to my brain. I did it, and little by little I increased the distances: from 100 to 200, half a km, 1 km, 2, 5, 10. Later I decided to try half marathons and that led me to try a marathon.”

The Spaniard, who boasts that he is not a half-hearted man, bet on more with a competition that marked a turning point in his life: the 2013 Ironman in Barcelona, a competition that consisted of 42.2 kilometers of marathon, 3.80 km of swimming and 180 km of cycling.

“I remember that day with great joy and happiness. The goal was not to finish the test but to have gotten there with all the previous preparation. I felt a lot of peace and satisfaction when I reached the finish line,” recalls Ramón, who in the film about his story (100 meters, on Netflix) he could see the emotional moment when he crossed the line accompanied by his family. “October 2023 will mark 10 years of that and, if the disease allows me, I would like to be there,” he says eagerly and adds: “Sport became a vital part of my life. It's funny, but in a way I'm a professional athlete who's old and disabled.”

At the age of 51, Arroyo is already in San Juan to compete in the province's half marathon (1900 meters of swimming, 90km of cycling and 21.1 km of marathon) with Sebastián Sosa of the Re Max team with whom he trained for the last time: “I am very excited, I have been told that San Juan is a very beautiful city to enjoy. I want to have fun, without forgetting that it is a competition, of course.”

In addition to practically becoming a semi-professional athlete, Ramón's present is very different from what he had before he was diagnosed with MS. Regarding his employment situation, the disease forced him to leave his job with the multinational: “It was a very intense job, with many trips, responsibilities and pressures. My brain is no longer there for that kind of thing. You can't do a job when your memory fails, or when you struggle to speak or think clearly. I had to leave and fight with the Spanish government to recognize my inability. A fight that is not only mine but that of many people.”

But that didn't stop him. He doesn't want to sit still, although rest is one of the medical recommendations in his situation: “I decided to take advantage of the opportunities that life gave me and get a financial return, because after all the bills don't pay themselves, children eat every day and so on.”

Thanks to his experience and his way of seeing life for 18 years, Ramón Arroyo is one of those chosen to give motivational talks under the slogan “Surrendering is not an option”, such as the one he recently held at the Re Max event for Argentina/Uruguay in front of more than two thousand people.

In addition, he collaborates with organizations at various events and is proud of his solidarity work: “I take advantage of the popularity to give visibility not only to our cause but also to that of others with little-known diseases.”

Today Ramón is a happy person, who lives a life like any other but understanding that he has to live with a chronic illness. “The disease will take things away from us, but it will allow us to make new ones. Being positive, we must use MS as an excuse to do that kind of thing that we have never dared to do; now we have the excuse because we are crazy, we have MS and no one is going to say no to us (smile)”.

According to the website Neurología.com, it is estimated that around 2.5 million people worldwide suffer from the disease. In Europe, the figure is 700,000 people, while Spain has a rate of 80-180 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

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